Title: The Bone Gate
Series: Lesser Known Monsters: Book Two
Author: Rory Michaelson
Publisher: Self-Published
Length: 336 Pages
Category: Dark Fantasy
Rating: 5 Stars
At a Glance: The way I fell so madly for this book. It’s imaginative and impressive and grabbed me by the heartstrings and never let go. The Bone Gate will, without question, make my Best Of list this year.
Reviewed By: Lisa
Blurb: New beginnings don’t mean happy endings…
More than a year has passed since Oscar’s friends stopped him from ending the world as we know it. Life is settling back to a new normal, and everyone is finally able to take a breath. The group are preparing to embrace the tedium of day jobs and current affairs, but must first deal with a little unfinished family business and some surprise house guests…oh, and a creature born from darkness hell-bent on destroying reality and everyone in it.
Well, that didn’t last long, did it?
Review: I once read what I thought was a really insightful comment that went something to the effect of, the result of raging against the machine is that the machine learns to feed off of the rage, and it made me stop and ponder the cyclical and symbiotic nature of anger. Rory Michaelson’s breathtakingly exquisite The Bone Gate is a bit like that if you substituted the word “rage” with “hate”, as it encompasses a critical element of the story. There is a monster bent on destroying the world, you see, a monster whose thirst for and attraction to hate will not be satiated until it has achieved its goal and puts an end to, quite literally, everything. And with so much hate to feast upon roiling in the human rage machine, the odds the monster will succeed increase exponentially the more and the longer it consumes.
That monster also has a single target in its sights, and it will do anything, kill anything and anyone, to reach its mark and achieve total annihilation.
It’s been eighteen months since Oscar saved the world in Lesser Known Monsters; six of those months he spent convalescing, and the balance of that time he and Dimitri have been traveling to the far corners to do some monster hunting on their own. Back home now with the family they’ve built, believing they can finally stop and spend some time doing all the mundane things they haven’t had time for before, the author puts an expedient end to that notion when some powerful entities turn up dead, or have gone missing, whichever the case. Michaelson doesn’t give his readers a moment to breathe as Oscar and Dimitri, along with Zara and Marcus and an unexpected ally, as well as Oscar’s sister (she’s a real treat), begin their investigation into the deadly goings on. And, of course, what would life be without an unwanted . . . guest . . . who shows up on Oscar and Dimitri’s doorstep to wreak havoc?
I am at a loss to explain how perfect this book is and how much I loved it. Every single bit of the story is meted out so meticulously: the mystery, the suspense, the action, the emotion—THE EMOTION—and the secrets—THE SECRETS—that are revealed all worked together to wring every ounce of feeling from me and my investment in the survival of this found family. And the end? Well, if you don’t like cliffhangers, I won’t try to change your mind about that, but if you could see your way around it, the way the end of The Bone Gate made me sob into my tissue was the greatest testament to how deeply engaged I was and how Oscar, that beautiful, loving soul who has so much forgiveness for everyone becomes the hero he never believed he was or could be.
This book is composed of the various definitions of love—of friends, of family, of self, and in the way Oscar and Dimitri love each other—and of compassion. Oscar has such a generous heart and has room for kindness even for those who mean him harm. The only person he may not extend that same compassion and kindness to is himself, and the moment he realizes that, it leads to one of the most eloquently touching scenes in the story.
The way I fell so madly for this book. It’s imaginative and impressive and grabbed me by the heartstrings and never let go. As an aside, the interior artwork is utterly brilliant, and Rory Michaelson ensures his readers know we’re walking with his characters through a contemporary world that is populated by the most magical of creatures. The Bone Gate will, without question, make my Best Of list this year.
You can buy The Bone Gate at:
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